A student from Japan pointed out something interesting to me recently. He said that it was actually considered somewhat impolite for girls in Japan to go out without make-up on. To an American, it seems kind of extreme, but I can see it happening. However, he was only from one part of Japan (and I don't remember which, but I think it was Tokyo), so I was wondering ii it was a local thing or a nationwide thing?

At the eikaiwa where I used to work one of my female Japanese co-workers told me that it was required that they wear make-up. I don't know if it was actually in the dress code for the Japanese workers (it wasn't for foreign staff), or if it was one of those unstated understandings, but I never saw a female co-worker without.

I'll admit I've been surprised at exactly how much some girls wear though after going to an onsen together and seeing their 素顔 for the first time. Sometimes they look like a completely different person.

becki_kanou wrote:I'll admit I've been surprised at exactly how much some girls wear though after going to an onsen together and seeing their 素顔 for the first time. Sometimes they look like a completely different person.

I misread that kanji the first time.. I thought it was 素肌. I was thinking, no wonder they looked like a completely different person.. lol. Sorry, Becki, I am completely emberassed that I misread that..

Now that I have washed the egg off my face, I will say I completely agree with you. And I think it goes beyond business girls. When the girls or mothers that stayed home would go out, they too would paint themselves up very heavily.

It seems like some girls, (especially ギャル) have no clue about what is socially appropriate and do their entire face on the train. Now, a little bit is fine, and I'll sometimes reapply lipstick or whatever, but these girls come on the train with nothing on, and then proceed to do their whole face from the ground up. Foundation, shadow, eyeliner, blush, mascara, lipstick, gloss etc. etc.

It's kind of gross and also seems dangerous, for example when the train is swaying and they're using one of those eyelash-curlers that looks like a medieval torture device. I've even seen a girl using a portable curling iron on the train which has the potential to be dangerous to other passengers rather than just her own dumb self. What really took the cake though was seeing two ギャル sitting together at a cafe and curling their hair at...the...table... EEEEwwww